Mick Dowling competed in the men's bantamweight boxing at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, winning his opening two bouts with explosive performances before being eliminated in the quarter-finals. From Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny, Dowling moved to Dublin in 1962 and trained as a waiter at the Gresham Hotel. His sporting background was in hurling and athletics before he joined the Arbour Hill Boxing Club in March 1965. When he won the Irish senior bantamweight title in 1968 he became an automatic choice for Mexico - the first of eight successive Irish bantamweight titles, a record in Irish amateur boxing for successive titles in a single weight division that was unequalled until Kenneth Egan won his eighth successive light-heavyweight title in 2010.
In Mexico, Dowling's explosive punching power was on full display: Bernd Juterzenka of the German Democratic Republic was floored twice in the opening round before the referee halted proceedings, and John Rakowski of Australia was also floored before being disqualified for dangerous use of the head. Dowling went on to compete at the Munich 1972 Olympics.
Boxing
